


12 Letters and a Poem

by CharlotteGlen



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bisexual Steve, Letters, M/M, Pansexual Bucky, Swearing, non-canon, set during tws
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 08:53:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4781306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlotteGlen/pseuds/CharlotteGlen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky wrote to Steve, but these were not letters you send. These were letters marked with death. When Steve finally reads the words of his lost friend, he faces the truth of his own feelings as well as Bucky's.</p><p>Inspired by the series Not Easily Conquered</p>
            </blockquote>





	12 Letters and a Poem

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is dedicated to Auden, who helped me through my writers block, kept me writing even when I doubted myself, and may be the only person who loves Steve Rogers more than I do.

James Buchanan Barnes named a small and safe Steven Grant Rogers his next of kin. And when Steven Grant Rogers was finally allowed to enlist, he named one James Buchanan Barnes his next of kin. And when James Buchanan Barnes slipped through the fingers of his nearest and dearest friend, all his personal items were boxed up by one Margret Carter and placed in storage until such a time when Steve Rogers would come off the front lines and retrieve the items. Of course Steve never did come back, and so his items were boxed up along with Sergeant Barnes’s. Normally these items would have been redistributed or perhaps sent to a museum, but Peggy Carter loved Steve, and Steve loved Bucky and so Ms. Carter kept the two boxes locked away in the depths of the S.H.I.E.L.D. archives. As her broken heart healed, she quite forgot they were there; but when current S.H.I.E.L.D. director, Nicholas J. Fury, took charge of the agency he left no stone unturned. And so when Steven Grant Rogers woke up after seventy years on ice he received two boxes, one labeled Captain Steven Rogers and the other Sergeant James Barnes.  
Steve had mixed feelings about his new apartment. First of all, it was in Washington D.C. and that felt all kinds of wrong. Second, it was so new. None of the things really felt like his. The box he had received of his belongings from S.H.I.E.L.D. had been his wartime items. There were no art supplies, there were no pictures, all he had were his old tags, his military issues clothes, a lighter Bucky had stolen of a dead HYDRA agent for him, and the compass that had Peggy’s picture in it that he had kept with him as the plane went down. Buck’s box was larger, probably because he had taken more things off the bodies of fallen soldiers, and Steve had been putting off opening it. Maybe it was because it felt like an invasion of privacy, and maybe it was because Bucky had always made a place home and Steve wasn’t sure if he was ready for this small one bedroom apartment with the blonde nurse down the hall to feel like home. So the box sat unopened on the one table he had for a week. Steve filled that time shopping for new clothing, some furniture, and books. He spent that time adjusting. He spent that time punching several punching bags. Finally he felt like he owed Bucky this. Even though it didn’t feel like it, it had been seventy years.  
Steve sat himself in front of the box, he rubbed his hands together nervously before taking a deep breath and pulling off the lid. Just as it had been in his box, there was a thick layer of dust coating everything. It puffed up around him in little clouds as he began pulling things out, and Steve couldn’t help but think that if he still had asthma Bucky would have been throwing a fit right now. The thought brought a smile to his lips as he pulled out Bucky’s spare jacket, a mismatched set of knives, a lighter, a compass, old tags, some more articles of clothing, and a few other necessities. Finally Steve had pulled most of the contents out, most things being basic necessities. It was odd, but even though the box had been in storage for the better part of the 20th century Steve could faintly smell Bucky. This brought tears to his eyes as he inhaled the smell of stale cigarette smoke, the powder off his sniper rifle, the smell of the forest, and that thing Steve could never quite name but just was always there, the perpetual smell of Bucky. Steve let out a breath, afraid that the scent would disappear if he inhaled too much or exhaled just the right way, and pulled out the only thing remaining within the box: A thick manila envelope that had been kept closed with a piece of twine and had his name printed on it in bold block writing that belonged to Bucky. Steve began to unwind the twine, but it disintegrated in his hand. He peeled up the top and reached for what was inside. A few pictures fell out first, they contained images of Steve mostly, pictures of him blushing away from whoever held the device, pictures of him sketching, there was even one of him before the serum, god he had been so small. Bucky was towering over him in that one, arm wrapped around his shoulders protectively as he whispered something into Steve’s neck that had made him throw his head back in laughter. The envelope was still heavy in his hand though, so he reached in once more to pull out what remained. A thick stack of envelopes, twelve to be exact, fell into his had. The stack was held together with another piece of twine. These were letters, Steve realized. These were letters meant for him. Steve had seen this before, men who knew they were going to die wrote letters to their loved ones and held onto them so that the family would have a new piece of them even after they were gone. Steve dropped these letters on the table, disgusted and distraught that Bucky had prepared for this. How could he? Hadn’t he wanted to come home with Steve? These letters would have been Bucky’s way of baring his soul to Steve, and even though seventy years had passed, Steve still felt the loss of Bucky deep and fierce. He put the letters up on a shelf in his closet, and found homes for the rest of Bucky’s belongings.  
Steve didn’t touch the letters. He reasoned that if there was an afterlife, Bucky could tell him what those letters had said himself and if there wasn’t, well it didn’t matter because he would never see Bucky again and he couldn’t bare knowing something and not being able to process it with Bucky. So when aliens fell from the sky he didn’t read them, he barely even thought about them to be honest. His missions for S.H.I.E.L.D. kept him busy and in his spare time he liked to visit Peggy. She was the last true link to his past. Steve finally thought about those letters when the organization Peggy and Howard had built fell apart because of him and one surviving James Buchanan Barnes. All of a sudden the idea of an afterlife with Bucky wasn’t a comfort, because Bucky wasn’t there. If Steve died, there would be no one waiting for him to tell him all the things the letter’s contained. So instead of going home and sleeping, Steve went home from the hospital and read the letters.

 _#1_  
_Steve,_  
_I heard this guy telling his friend that he was going to right insurance letters. Letters for his family just in case he died. Letters that would give them a little piece of him to hold onto, even after he was gone. I guess I should think about doing that for you, but what good will a letter do you if i’m gone, Steve? Then again, Steve, I write you a hundred letters a day. Steve, there isn’t enough ink and paper in the world for me to write down every word i think to you. I have drafts of letters piled in the back of my mind. Some of them are the same with just a tweek here and a change there, others I tell you everything and some I tell you nothing. Steve, these letters are collecting cobwebs in my mind. So maybe I will pick the best of these letters and I will write them down and if I die, and god I hope I don’t because I can’t leave you to fend for yourself, then at least you will have the best and worst pieces of my mind (because let’s be honest Stevie, you can’t have one without the other). Steven Grant Rogers, if I die I want you to know me. I know it is selfish, but I want you to know me past the facade I have put up, past the words of the world, and maybe even past your own prejudices (though you are so good Steve, I doubt you have any). Please promise me that you will know me, Steve. Please promise that you will remember me as I am not as you thought I was._  
_-Bucky_

 _#2_  
_Stevie,_  
_Stevie. Stevie. Stevie. Maybe if I say the name enough, maybe if I think it hard enough, maybe if I write it down enough times you will go back to being my little Stevie. How long did you think you could hide this from me? Did you think I wouldn’t find out about “Captain America”? Don’t get me wrong Steve, I’m glad that if i get so full of holes I can’t go on you won’t drop dead, but I can’t help but tell you that I am jealous. I was the only one in your world. I kept you alive. That was my job, my purpose. What do I do with myself now? Thank God you aren’t here though. God, Steve you could have come here. You could have ended up in Hell._  
_Sometimes I find myself thinking about the draft. Did you know I was drafted? Of course you don’t because I hid it from you. When I got the letter, I had no idea what to do. God, Stevie I was so scared. You were out, selling your artistic talents for way too little, and I packed a bag. Don’t worry I wasn’t going to leave you, it was for you. Then I started packing my things, I had a plan too. I was going to tell you that I had heard of a job up state. We would go there, there would be nothing and so I would hear of another job even ruther up state. Eventually we would have made it into Canada. It was a stupid plan Stevie, you would have seen right through it. I knew it too. So I unpacked everything, and then I burned the letter. I had to pretend I was happy about this Stevie. Every time I saw the sadness in your eyes, or worse, the envy, my heart broke. Stevie, you stole it and then you broke it. How could you be so cruel? How can you not see how glad I am it is me and not you? Stevie I wish you could understand how much I am hurting, because even I am not entirely sure why it hurts this much. I told you, didn’t I tell you, The best and the worst._  
_-Bucky_

 _#3_  
_What the Hell were you doing there Steve? Why did you think it was okay for you to come out here? Steve why did you save me? How can I be grateful for my life when it dragged you out here. Steve they tore me apart from the inside out, but that is nothing compared to what this war will do to you. Steve you are too good. Steve you are too good for this war. Steve we can win this war without you. Steve I wanted you to be safe. Steve I wanted so much for you to be safe. Steve I should have done it. I should have picked you up and thrown you over my shoulder and gone to Canada. We would have bought a house, Steve. We would have lived in the country, it would have been better for your health. Steve people are supposed to be more open in Canada. Steve I could have told you how I felt. Steve I’m going to tell you now, because let’s face it if i’m dead it doesn't matter anymore, and if you haven’t already figured it out well then I fell in love with an idiot. God damn it Steven Grant Rogers, what kind of person steals a man’s heart and breaks it so often. Why couldn’t you be careful with something so precious? Do you know? Do you understand? How could you not know, though? Steve I can feel it. Every time I look at you it swells inside me. Steve how does the world not see it. Everything I have done for you and everything I would do for you, yet you toss it aside. I know you don’t mean to, but still how could you? I don’t blame you Steve, it is the world we live in. Most people like me could live their whole life without realizing who they are. I like dame’s, Steve, truly and honestly I do. I had to meet the one person in the entire world that could make me feel this way. I had to meet you Steve. I don’t want to come across sounding ungrateful, because I honestly mean it: I HAD to meet you. There would be no Bucky Barnes because he only exists in a world where there is you. God I could look at a hundred other guys and gals all, more beautiful and more handsome than the one before, and none of them could make me turn away from you. Could tempt me into a world where you don’t exist in my life, in my arms, God forgive, in my heart. Steve, don’t follow me to this Hell, and if you must, please remember me well because I don’t think you will like the James Buchanan Barnes this war has produced. I don’t think I like him._  
_-Bucky_

 _#4_  
_Steve,_  
_I can see it. Do you think I am blind, baby? Can I call you that. In Canada I take you in my arms and whisper these pet names in your neck. In Canada, you understood why we left. But that isn’t you, is it baby. I can see the way you look at her. This Agent Carter. I can see why. Lord, I see her and I am filled with burning hot envy, but I am just a man, Steve, and I see her and I understand why you love her. I know you love her, don’t hide it from me. Canada was never in the cards for us, was it pal? You were to righteous. You were to patriotic. You were to destined to be with this woman. And still I fantasize. And still I wish things had been different. Steve, I see you and my heart leaps into my throat. I know you feel the same way when you look at her. Steve, if you had to watch me almost die over and over again I think you would feel the same way I do. I think you were too busy fighting for your life to fight for us. Is that just wishful thinking? If I took you to Canada, and wrapped you in my arms, and told you I love you would you be disgusted? Would you be sad? Steve, be honest with yourself, because I’m dead so you don’t have to lie to me: Would you ever love me back? Peggy is a lucky gal. You are gonna make her a happy wife. I can see it in your eyes._  
_-Bucky_

 _#5_  
_Stevie,_  
_I hate you. I love you. I can never make up my mind. I want to tell you about Canada. Please indulge my fantasy, after all, i’m dead how much can it hurt you?_  
_In this world I am a miracle worker. I convince you to run to Canada. Maybe it is because you know if I go we will never really see eachother again. Even if I come back I won’t be me anymore. So we run. We take only what we can carry, plus your art supplies, and we make it. It feels like freedom, which is all kinds of ironic, isn’t it Captain America? I don’t know how we pay for it, probably your art and the good will of a few strangers, but we find a small house just outside a small town. We have some animals. A goat or cow or sheep or pigs or something. You are doing better. The city air was no good for your lungs. You spend your days drawing. You draw everything. Me, the farm, the sun, anything you lay your eyes on. And I can kiss you. I can bring your head close to mine and let my lips find yours. I can hold you there, I can feel your heart race. Can you feel mine? It is pounding out of my chest. Steve I can do more than kiss you. I won’t tell you, I don’t want to upset you. Maybe you want to hear, though. No. These thoughts are mine, even when I die I want those thoughts to be mine. I don’t care if it selfish that I want to keep things from you, but I can’t stand the thought that I might accidentally lose you. Steve these letters are a risk. You gotta know what I am risking. Even in death I can’t lose you._  
_-Bucky_

 _#6_  
_Steven,_  
_Steven Grant Rogers. Your name tastes so sweet on my lips. I might die just by tasting your name. It honestly disgusts me. I disgust me. What was the name of that dame you kissed? The one that Agent Carter caught you with. I kissed her, Steve. Not because of her, I kissed her for one simple reason: you had. I did more than that with her, Steve. Is that awful? When did I stop thinking about kissing you and start think about fucking her? I was so selfish. She didn’t even taste like you, Steve. But it was so close. Something so close and within my grasp and it slipped through my fingers. Have you ever had that? Something you can’t let go of turns to water in your fingers and leaks out the sides. You are leaking out of me, baby. I kissed her, and then I fucked her, and then I kissed her again. The second time was to make up for the fact that I wasn’t really kissing her at all the first time. I was trying to kiss you. Steve she was good. Once I stopped trying to taste you, she was good. Maybe she could be my Agent Carter. Maybe I am just trying to make you jealous. Is that possible? To make you jealous you would have to feel the same way I do. I honestly doubt you do, looking at Agent Carter the way you do. What is the point of making you jealous if I am dead? I suppose there is no point. Steve I am so sorry that you had to know m in this way. And yet I can’t stop. I am so selfish. But you knew that._  
_-Bucky_

 _#7_  
_Steve,_  
_I like the way you look when you hold that metal monstrosity that you wave around like some caped crusader. I like the way the sweat drips down your face. Steve, I miss skinny you, but I do love the fact that I could never break you now. I could do incredible things to this new you. Hell, you could do incredible things to me. I love the way you look when you ride your motorbike. Strong and powerful. I miss the Steve that I had to protect, but I am finding new ways of protecting you. Steve I have killed for you. Do you know that? Do you realize that? Do you understand that I am killing these men for you? It’s not for anyone else, not for some ideal cause, it is all for you. The men I killed had families, waiting for them to come home. I didn’t care because they were threatening you. The men I killed had lives outside of this war. I didn’t think about it because they could have hurt you. Steve, these men could have been artists, musicians, scientists, but they were too young so they were grunt men. Steve I killed them because you are an artist and you are a hero and because I know you and care about you. Steve, I feel no emotional attachment to these men, but I still have empathy. Maybe they will bleed that out of me soon enough._  
_-Bucky_

 _#8_  
_Steve,_  
_I love smoking with you now. Remember how I never let you do it before? I told you, your lungs were already shit enough they didn’t need my bad habbits. Now I can do this with you. I really love it. I love it when we sit outside, cigarettes pressed between our teeth, drizzling rain misting and mixing with the smoke. I love the way you sketch me, the burning ember poking out between your lips as you recreate my jaw line and a wisp of smoke. I love the nights when we are running low, so we pass one cigarette back and forth. I inhale so deeply, trying to separate your taste from the taste of nicotine. In the faint orange glow I look up at you through my lashes. Steve my face is painted with love. You are always lost in thought, your eyes watching the way the cigarette burns, trying to capture it to memory as the smoke curls off it and wisps away into the air. Your hands moving so quickly as if you could capture every second in this one picture. But the world keeps on spinning and when you couldn’t possibly draw anymore it moves past this frame. The cigarette burns out, or your pencil breaks, or Peggy calls you away from me. The picture can’t last forever, no matter how hard you sketch. Sometimes I think, or maybe I hope, that you are trying to capture our love. Express your love for me. I think this war is making me crazy. Crazy for you and crazy about us._  
_-Bucky_

 _#9_  
_Steve,_  
_We don’t really talk about the fact that you keep a picture of Peggy in your compass. If you are wondering why I never brought it up, it’s because I have a picture of you in mine. And Stevie, it hurts me so much to know that I am not in yours. Steve, you always tease me for the way I handle my compass, but maybe now you understand why. That is the reason I keep it in my left breast pocket, because I am trying to keep you as close to my heart as possible. You always tease me about it, how cruel of you. Don’t you think I know that it would be more accessible in my pocket, just like where you keep yours? You just don’t understand right now, and that’s good. That is the way it should be. I have to admit, there have been some close calls. I can’t let anyone else use my compass. It’s stupid, and I usually come up with terrible excuses why nobody else can use it. I swear to God yesterday I told Dum Dum Dugan that the reason he couldn’t borrow my compass was that it ‘pointed north differently and would confuse him’ which made him look at me funny and ask why I still had it. I then told him it had been my father’s, but we both know that’s a load of bull. I think this may be the stupidest thing I have ever done, and that includes the time I tried to talk you into helping me steal the two watermelons out of Mrs. Arbuckle’s window box after she said that your art wouldn’t lead to anything. God I could have killed her for that. You didn’t draw for weeks. It took so much effort just to get you to do a simple sketch again; but when you finally did start drawing, your whole face lit up with happiness and it was worth everything. I just want you to know, Steve, if it’s for you, it will always be worth it._  
_-Bucky_

 _#10_  
_Steve,_  
_I’m sorry. I stopped writing these letters for you a long time ago. They are for me now. I am a coward. I couldn’t tell you these things in life, so now I force them on you in death. What a bang up friend I am, huh punk? I may have permanently ruined how you think of me, but what should I care, I’m dead. If I am dead, it shouldn’t matter. But as I form these words, and I write them down on paper, I am still breathing, and so for this moment it does matter. Sometimes I think, if I had the right words I could make you fall in love with me. I could utter something so pure into your ears and you would be wrapped around my finger forever. I think these letters are just me trying to find the words. I want to find the words to make you mine. I want to capture those words, hold onto them, study them, and then when I am absolutely sure that they are the right ones, I want to send them to you. Could the words I am looking for really be as simple as ‘I love you’? I doubt it, there is too much I feel for you for those three words to contain and express my emotions. So I will keep looking for the words, I promise I will find them someday. For now I shall have to be content with a thousand imperfect words instead of a handful of perfect ones._  
_-Bucky_

 _#11_  
_Steve,_  
_Everything feels so final right now. Everything feels so dark. I can’t help but think back to a simpler moment in my life. A summer filled with Shakespeare. Hey Stevie, did you know some people think he was like me? He was in love with a man, but maybe it was society or maybe the man just didn't love him back, either way they couldn’t be together. He wrote so many of his sonnets for this man. Steve, when I look at you I can’t tell if the reason we aren’t together is society, or is you. Sometimes I look at you, and I realise you are society. You are all tied up in the politics of this war. And so I think back a few summers._  
_We were just kids. It was before the war. I was working at the docks, and you were getting into trouble. I had a summer gal, Angie. She had a tongue sharp as a whip, kept all the boys down there in line, and she had thick brown hair that curled around her shoulders. I don’t know what it was, but I think she was like me. She looked at girls the same way I did, and I looked at guys the same way she did. She used to come by the dock in her skirts and blouses or in her pants and button downs, and she would dangle her legs off the side. She wanted to be an actress, and so she was always bringing down some of Shakespeare's works. She would read to me, and it was magical. I loved to listen to her going on about these poor souls while I moved the heavy loads. When my shift would end, we would walk and hold hands and kiss. When we kissed, she whispered his sonnets into my mouth. I was so in love with her Steve, she was the one girl who could have truly turned me away from you. But she was a summer dame. When the crisp air blew in, she left. I was alone with you again. And so I fell in love with you all over again._  
_-Bucky_

_A Poem By James Buchanan Barnes_

_If we were renaissance men, I could compare you to summer’s days and flowers by other names_  
_This is not what we are_  
_We are men of progression_  
_Of coal and steel and soot_  
_There is no color in poetry anymore, the world knows only grey and it’s many shades_  
_Reds of passion have seeped out, a victim of this battle as well as the men it oozes from_  
_In a hundred years or so the world may reawaken in vibrant color_  
_But we are men of cold steel and sleepless nights_  
_And flowers don’t bloom where we wander_  
_I can’t compare you to a summer's day, but I can compare you to the night_  
_I can’t compare you to the words of a poet_  
_I can compare you to the brush strokes of an artist_  
_I can compare you to dark swirling blues that wash over a canvas_  
_You are the bursts of yellow texture that pull at my soul and whisper across the canvas_  
_I am the shallow unmoving sky_  
_You are the texture, the light, the contrast, the creator of shadows_  
_You are my midsummer night_  
_You are my dream of fairies and far off places_  
_Your eyes store my darkened color while my selfish tung licks the poet's words_  
_In the bloodied world of grey_  
_I touch you and see in the vibrant color of a night sky_  
_I hear the words rattle in my head_  
_My hand finds the paper and pour my soul_  
_We are men who could only find each other in night, yet can only see each other during the day_  
_I am forever comparing us to star crossed lovers_  
_I am forever comparing a phantom to a statue_  
_You are no more mine than the moon is the sun’s_  
_It is the stars that own the sky_ _after all_  
_-Bucky_

Steve felt something drip down his nose. He couldn’t process what was happening until three wet spots had begun to blur the ink. Steve was crying. Steven Grant Rogers was letting out a sob. He couldn’t breath, his chest felt like it was collapsing in on him. He moved the papers off his lap and onto the coffee table, not wanting to ruin them with the tears he could not control. He had to do something with his hands. Yes, that was it he had to do something so he could process. He had to do something so that he could express himself. Almost in a daze, Steve pulled himself to his bedroom. He found the box of art supplies he kept on the top shelf. This was what he needed. He could draw out his emotions. Pulling out a sketchpad and some grey scale pencils Steve tried to wrap his mind around the purest confessions he had heard. He sat poised to draw, and yet he could think of nothing. His mind was a blank slate except for the raw emotion that he simply could not channel. Steve wasn’t quite sure how long he sat there, trying to draw, trying to think through this, trying to understand why Bucky had left him with nothing but pain and suffering and hope. Finally it dawned on Steve that perhaps he needed an outside observer to help. He didn’t know why he called Sam, not that he didn’t trust the guy they had just saved the world together, but he hardly knew him. Sometimes the heat of battle and the threat of nazis taking over makes a man forget to ask the basic getting to know you questions. But here he was, dialing Sam’s number and realizing he may be asleep because they had just saved the world. If he had been asleep, Sam didn’t seem annoyed to have been awoken by Steve.  
“Hey cap, whatcha need?” He sounded ready, like he had a go bag in his hand and was simply waiting for the order.  
“This is gonna be weird, but I don’t need falcon right now, I need Sam Wilson who works at the VA’s office and helps vet’s because I don’t know who else to talk to.” Steve was in a rush, he needed to do this now because it just seemed so important. It was one of those things that you dropped everything for. Sam seemed to understand because his tone shifted. He was no longer a soldier waiting for the order, he was the man who understood and would guide because he had been there.  
“Take a deep breath, Cap. Okay now start at the beginning, and don’t forget to breath.” He had done this a thousand time, he knew how to get the story out and how to do so productively. Steve did as he was told, and soon Sam knew everything. Steve spared no detail because he honestly couldn’t. Steve knew he was lucky that he had woken up in a time when being like Bucky was acceptable. When being like him was acceptable. Finally he finished, and for a moment sam just sat in silence. Finally he spoke.  
“So you never knew?” That was the thing, looking back on it Steve felt like he had known and yet he knew it wasn’t true. Steve hadn’t known about Bucky, he had hoped, but he hadn’t known.  
“No, I mean I wanted him to be but I never knew. I never asked because I couldn’t. Neither of us could.”  
“Why not?”  
“It was different then, Sam, I was different then. He was different. The world was less accepting.”  
“But you wanted to?”  
“God yes, every day I woke up and I wanted to tell him how I felt but I was so afraid he would look at me in disgust. Even before I knew I loved him I wanted to tell him I was different.”  
“So tell him now.”  
“I can’t, I don’t know where he is and I don’t even know if he remembers me.”  
“No, I mean tell him, past Bucky. Steve those letters weren’t meant for you, they were meant for a Steve who died when he woke up seventy years in the future. So write to the Bucky that he knew, that way when we find him, and we will find him, he can have a little bit of who he was back and you can show him who you were.”  
And so that is how Steve ended up at his laptop, the digital clock on his end table blinking two am, ready to write. He couldn’t do it. No matter how hard he tried the words wouldn’t come. He wasn’t Bucky, he wasn’t a story teller. He could draw, sure, but words were never his strong point. The impersonal white light of the laptop was driving him crazy. With a snap, Steve closed the computer and walked to the kitchen. He could still see the bullet holes that Bucky had made in his wall. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. As he shuffled around, trying to make a cup of tea, his eyes fell on a fountain pen and sheets of paper. Tony had gotten them for him as a gift, saying that if he never figured out how to use a computer at least he could still communicate with his generation. Sometimes Steve really hated that guy. And yet he found himself picking up the pen. His tea kettle whistled, but all of a sudden Steve didn’t need tea, he knew what he had to write. He quickly turned off the stove, then pulled his chair around so that he would write without blocking the light.

 _Bucky,_  
_We lived in a different time. I understand that, logically I understand why you wanted to protect me, but damn you. You took away my choice. Of course I fell in love with Peggy, but that was only because I couldn’t have you. Bucky, you were the one who made it clear that we would never be together. I tried to wait for you. In my own way I tried to wait for you. It was silly because you didn’t know. There is a word for me now. I bet there is a word for you too. I love you, damn you. You were a coward. I was to, but you were worse. You pretended to be brave and then you left your burden to me. I intended to carry this to the grave, Bucky. Isn't that what we were supposed to do? How could you compare us to night or day? Bucky, we are not men of night or day, we walk a perpetual sunrise. Don’t you know that when I’m with you I can see the sun, the moon, and the stars? I swear I will always fight for you, isn’t that what we promised? It’s what I have always intended. I love you James Buchanan Barnes, and I swear I will find you. I will not leave you abandoned in this cruel world that has spit us out in ice. Wait for me, dear god just wait for me. I swear, i’m coming as fast as I can. I am so sorry it took me this long. There are no summer soldier's here._


End file.
